by Terah Edun
“What do you know about my people?” Rivan asked curtly.
“Nothing?” Mae replied in a voice so tentative it was practically a question.
Rivan shot her a look of incredulity.
“We don’t exactly have dragons flying around here,” Mae snapped. “What should I know?”
He chewed his lip.
“Let’s start with a basic background,” he offered.
“Yes, let’s,” she said with a semi-relieved smile. Anything to get out of the hole she’d seemingly dug herself into.
“My people were the founders of everything you see before you,” he said proudly. “They first landed on your coast over a century ago. With them they brought all the modern knowledge, instruments, culture, and language you use today. Everything that humans covet, we dragons created and proliferated. So you have us to thank for the societies that exist on this coast as well as on our own.”
Mae stared at him dumbfounded.
“What?” Rivan asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Your people founded…the world?” she said slowly.
“Yes, isn’t that what I said?” Rivan asked without the least bit of contrition.
“Well, I—” she said almost choking on her words.
Fortunately, Rivan interrupted before they could get into a drag-out fight about the human viewpoint on that.
Waving a dismissive hand, Rivan continued, “But that’s not really relevant right now. We could go on for hours about the incredible exploits of the advance explorers who discovered the lands you now call Algardis and Nardes.”
Mae wasn’t sure she wanted to know more about these ‘advance explorers’. From Rivan’s tone they sounded like grandiose idiots, but she let him continue on because there was no hope of stopping him otherwise.
“My people are from the province of Sahalia of course,” Rivan said airily. “It is primarily composed of dragons but we tolerate other lower beings mostly in the servant classes—humans and faeries and the like.”
“Faeries?” Mae asked getting a bit dizzy.
“Again not important,” Rivan said flapping his hand at this little divergence.
“But you brought it up!” Mae argued.
Rivan pinned her with a hard look.
“And if I have the time to explain all of the glorious thousand years of my people’s eras, I will get back to it,” said Rivan slowly. “But like I said this is just an overview. Now stop interrupting and listen.”
Mae fell silent but only after biting her bottom lip so hard it nearly bled.
Still her ears were open and her eyes attentive which apparently was the only thing Rivan needed to dive back in.
Clearing his throat he continued, “My people, the dragons, are referred to within the class of kith by lesser beings who don’t truly know what we are. But suffice it to say, that is a far too basic an explanation for the wonder that is a true dragon.”
Mae practically squirmed as she wanted to dart into the monologue, but true to form, Rivan continued on with barely a pause.
“We have power over the elements, generate our own internal magic which we can also substitute from other energies, and most important,” Rivan said with a sharp look at her. “We can transmute our forms from a small, weak human shell to the magnificent and massive beings known as dragons in the mortal tongue.”
Mae waited patiently for him to continue but he was silent for more than a minute after that.
“Is that it?” she asked.
Rivan shot her an offended look.
Before he complained, she quickly said “I didn’t mean for you to take offense…I was just wondering if you were done.”
“Yes and no,” Rivan said folding his arms tightly. “What a dragon is, can’t be fully explained, only experienced.”
“Oh,” Mae said softly—almost in disappointment.
“However,” Rivan said in a lofty voice as he paced. “Know that I basically possess two dual forms and identities. Each equal to each other with all my mental faculties and magical abilities intact in both. The dragon form of course is far more physically powerful and aerodynamically capable of flight as well.”
“Of course,” Mae said weakly. “Why don’t we start walking and discuss it a little further?”
He looked around then nodded sharply. He knew as well as she did that it was true, they couldn’t linger in one place too much longer. Meanwhile her brain was a bit dizzy with all he had just revealed and what she had just seen.
But surprisingly it made some sense now.
She finally realized where the boy with ripped clothes, no money, and an indentured servitude to a traveling foreign mage got that extremely conceited temperament of his.
In fact, being a dragon, or at least thinking he was one, explains a lot about Rivan as a whole, Mae thought to herself in wonder.
She didn’t tell him all that though.
She wasn’t looking for another lecture.
Besides Maeryn Darnes had more important plans to put into place. Like using her extremely powerful connection to rain fire and fury down on some mercenaries who deserved everything that was coming to them.
Easing into it, Mae smiled at Rivan and linked her arm with his as they walked through a new door and sprinted away from the sight of their epic battle in the rotunda.
As they skulked in a back hallway filled with cobwebs, Mae was determined she would never have to hide again.
Turning to Rivan with a calculated look on her face Mae said, “I’m pleased to meet my first dragon, especially one who has made such valiant efforts to save my life time and again.”
Despite himself, Rivan’s chest puffed out a little in pride.
Her smile sharpening a bit, Mae then said, “How about we use some of those dragon abilities to defeat our enemies then?”
Rivan looked a little alarmed at her suggestion.
“What did you have in mind?” Rivan asked.
Mae gave him a complicated look.
“Let’s start with taking over this greater holding,” she said with promise in her voice. “Then we’ll move on to the world.”
~*~*~*
~*~*~*
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Courtlight Series Boxed Set Books 1-3 Summary
The first set in the wildly popular Courtlight series contains Books 1-3. Perfect for readers of Sarah J. Maas and George R.R. Martin looking for a new set to devour.
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Orphan Ciardis infiltrates the palace and competes to become Prince Sebastian's Companion -- but with danger around every corner she will have to fight an imposter emperor and unite her people all while falling for him.
Sworn To Raise 17-year-old Ciardis had grown up in poverty. Now chosen for a position at court,she travels across the empire to begin a new life. To survive she'll need to master intrigue, befriend a crown prince, and learn to control magical abilities she never knew existed.
Sworn To Transfer Just when Ciardis becomes a companion trainee and saved the prince heir's tenuous claim to the throne, humans begin to die in gruesome deaths.With enemies closing in ranks, Ciardis can't afford to have her loyalty to court and crown called into question.
Sworn To Conflict After fighting for the living dead and winning, Ciardis discovers that taking on amass murderer was the least of her problems.Now she not only is facing a war in the North, but she needs to decide where she stands in the midst of competing sides: family or empire.
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Sworn To Raise: Book One, Chapter One
Ciardis Vane watched the townspeople jeering as the local Gardis strapped the highwayman into the stocks. Frowning Ciardis wormed her way closer to the front of the crowd, straining to get a peek at the criminal. She felt no pity for
the condemned man; he would die tonight, regardless of her feelings. The nightwolves were already pacing, their shadowed forms just visible in the dense tree line, waiting for darkness to fall.
Without the protection of the house wards, the highwayman would be defenseless locked in the stocks. I wish I could say it will be a quick death, she thought with clinical detachment, but they'll probably go for his guts first. The man deserved no less than death in any case; he had done nothing but steal from—and sometimes kill—those who traveled the Imperial coach roads. "Stand and deliver," indeed!
Ciardis pushed back her heavy brown curls with a sun-bronzed hand. Turning slightly to the side she whispered about his crime with the other washer maids who'd come to see the spectacle. Suddenly, she felt a sharp pinch on her wrist. Turning to see who had interrupted her entertainment, she looked over and frowned down at the younger woman who now stood by her side.
Wringing her hands anxiously, Margaret looked up at Ciardis and gave a quick jerk of her head to the side to indicate they should speak outside the crowd. "You'll want to hear this firsthand, Ciardis," Margaret said with urgency.
"All right, all right," Ciardis muttered as they made their way out of the crowd and down to the washer station with a few other girls trailing behind. The slight blonde woman who scurried next to her was a great source of village gossip, and Ciardis knew that whatever she had to say would be worth leaving the spectacle in the midst of the judge’s punishment. To Ciardis, a good piece of gossip was as welcome as spun gold...usually.
When they’d walked far enough from the crowds Margaret was quick to tell Ciardis the news that she’d heard from the weaver’s daughter who’d heard it in the apothecary the day before.
Practically bursting with the pent up news Mags bounced on the balls of her feet as she said, “Fervis and the caravan girl…they’re together Ciardis.”
“They’re together?” Ciardis said with disgust, “No, he’s with me.”
Mags shook her whole head, curls bouncing every which way, in denial.
“They were seen, getting in a big fight and then…” said Mags.
“So?” interrupted Ciardis in disdain. “That means nothing.”
Patiently the girl continued, ignoring the interruption, “And then the girl’s father came and threatened to kill Fervis. One thing led to another and now they’re bound.”
This bit of news hit Ciardis with all the weight of a lead brick.
“Bound?” questioned Ciardis unsteadily. Bound was very different from together. Bound meant married, bound meant forever. Now she felt like throwing up.
“Yeah,” said Mags softly, “I mean…I thought you’d want to know…first.”
At this point Ciardis was staring off in the distance – hand pressed flat against her stomach as if by holding it she could keep her stomach from plummeting in despair.
Minutes later the town bell rang signaling that the highwayman had been sentenced and imprisoned. Everyone would be going back to work now.
Mind numb Ciardis trailed behind Mags, trying to comprehend how her life had just upended.
When she got back to the wash room Ciardis bent over the soapy tub, mind numb as her hands worked mechanically to scrub the red jerkin. Margaret knelt across from her, happily chattering away like a magpie. According to Mags, the miller's son had gotten some passing girl with child. The news had spread like wildfire after the fool had stumbled into the local apothecary's asking for honey's brew. Every woman in town knew that there was only one use for honey's brew, and it wasn't to sweeten tongues.
If the girl had been an orphan, like Ciardis, her swelling belly wouldn't have mattered much. She would have borne the brunt of the town’s gossip for the winter months and gone home with a second mouth to feed after the snows melted. But the girl's father was the caravan driver for the only merchant willing to brave the fierce winds of Vaneis in the winter. He'd heard someone's tongue wagging and had confronted the girl before the honey's brew had passed her lips.
Frantic once he’d heard the truth from his daughter’s lips, he had gone in search of Fervis Miller. Whatever words had passed between the caravan driver and Fervis over his daughter’s ‘condition’ had been enough to get the message across. Fervis, bruises already darkening on his skin, had shakily gotten down on one knee before five witnesses and asked the girl for her hand in marriage.
The wedding was to take place on the dawn of the Sabbath – just three days hence.
Ciardis frowned contemplating going to their wedding – she would have to. Weddings were one of the few forms of entertainment in town, if she didn’t go it would definitely take notice. She didn't care. Honestly, she didn't. If that idiot couldn't keep his stick in his pants, then he didn't deserve to wear her ring. Wringing out the last jerkin, she twisted it like she was wringing a stubborn turkey's neck. Or, better yet, Fervis Miller's.
She wiped her hands with a drying cloth, careful to prod Mags for more tidbits at the right intervals. She had finished washing the jerkins and Mags was done with the skirts she was scrubbing. They put them out to dry before the oven fires and then moved on to fold the huge stacks of tunics and pack them in the caravan trunks with dried sprigs of fresh mint. Ciardis thought about the stolen moments she'd had with the miller's son. In the summer, they'd picnicked in the meadows, and throughout mid-winter he'd held her waist as they flew across the ice of the secluded mountain ponds. Memories of the soft touches exchanged and the ardor in his voice when he'd promised that he'd petition for her vows were still imprinted upon her mind. He'd promised over and over that he'd convince his mother somehow that Ciardis, orphan girl with skin the color of pale pecans and unruly chestnut curls, was the young woman that should be her daughter-in-law.
Ha! Last spring, she and Fervis had even hatched a plan for her to bump into his mother as she left morning prayers at the church. They’d painstakingly played out the scene while laying on fresh hay in the cobbler’s barn. When the day to bump into his mother had come Ciardis had tried to strike up a conversation. But from the moment the conversation began, it was clear from the rancor in the woman's tone and the disparaging look in her eyes that she considered her son’s marriage prospects far above the town’s orphaned girl.
Guess she was right, Ciardis thought with irony, He’s going to get a caravan merchant’s daughter who lifts her skirts for the first young man she sees instead.
Frustrated and tired, Ciardis threw her basket of clothes down on the floor with such force that she startled Margaret right out of her monologue. "What's with you?" Mags asked, dark eyes wide.
"Nothing, nothing," muttered Ciardis. "There was a ground bug on the floor—just wanted to get it before it escaped."
Inside she was seething, calling Fervis every dirty name she knew. She'd wasted two whole years on that idiot. Two years of listening to his constant whining about grain prices and the boring bakery gossip in his uncle's shop.
She'd set her sights on him at age fifteen. He had been boring then, and he was boring now, but she could live with boring. What she couldn’t live with were the pangs of hunger after an evening with no meals, a month without meat, or the backbreaking work of being a temporary field hand. With a man like Fervis, set with a steady income from being in a miller’s family, Ciardis could have a life of leisure…or close to it. But now thanks to that lout she was ruined. Here she was, seventeen with no nest egg or dowry to buy a husband, and she'd already snubbed every boy within twenty miles to show Fervis her devotion. Her devotion, for crying out loud! Fat lot of good it did her now.
After finishing the last load of laundry, she eased out of the hot sauna room and into the outer chamber where Sarah, the dour head cleaner and accountant, kept the tally chips. The tally chips were small marks color coded for a task. A red chip for hard to clean garments like the red leather jerkins, a blue chip for folding a basket, a green chip for pressing and ironing. She counted hers as she walked down the hallway to Sarah’s office. Today she'd washed three loads
by hand and pressed and packed a further two. That was just enough to get her a decent tally at the end of two weeks' work. She had to pay the innkeeper soon.
Handing the chips over to Sarah, she waited impatiently in front of the scarred wooden desk. The woman took forever with anything, particularly when that anything involved money. She squeezed the last shilling out of every washing cloth and piece of soap she bought.
At last, Sarah handed over her payment and she went home. She even had a few extra coins, enough for a small bowl of soup with bread—huzzah! Since she could pay in cash she didn’t have to worry about adding tonight's dinner to her tab, then. The innkeeper was a pleasant man, but he always charged interest to the month’s tab when she did that.
She was freezing by the time she stepped into the warm inn kitchen, even though she was bundled in three layers, with woolen pants on under her skirts. Rushing to the fire, she warmed her chafed hands over the flames.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the only male waiter for the inn rush in through the swinging panel doors from the tavern. From the noise that wafted in behind Kelly the place was packed with journeymen. Must be that caravan that’s on its way out, she thought as she nibbled on a cracker she’d filched from a side table on her way into the kitchen.
Kelly began to hurry out just as fast carrying a platter filled with hot mutton and an empty kettle which swung erratically from his hand. She ducked to dodge the errant kettle and said irritably, "Watch where you're going, Kelly, you big lout! You almost brained me." Ciardis pushed her scarf back off her silky mane as she straightened up, scowling.
"Sorry, lass," Kelly said, already rushing through the swinging panels and into the tavern. Noise flooded through the open doorway. Must be a large crowd tonight, Ciardis mused.
"Hey, lass!" said the rotund cook, "Good to see you." He leaned close, smelling heavily of savory spices, and said in a low voice, "Mind your way when you head back to your room, hear? Lots of knights about, and not all of 'em Gardis, if you catch my meaning."
